After 1944, Japan continued to retreat in the face of U.S. attacks, especially after the Battle of Mariana and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Combined Fleet had already died in name only, and in the face of this situation, the Japanese military used the spirit of Bushido to propose a "one-man, one-machine for-one ship" approach to deal with the U.S. pressing fleet, trying to save the defeated situation with this "fearlessness of death" behavior.
The USS Enterprise, hit by a kamikaze aircraft
The main task of the Navy's anti-aircraft guns during World War II was to disperse and interfere with enemy aircraft to drop bombs or torpedoes, at this time the aircraft to deal with was only the carrier of bombs or torpedoes, when the kamikaze special attack aircraft turned the aircraft into bombs, the interference and dispersal ability of the anti-aircraft guns lost their role, and directly smashing the kamikaze suicide aircraft was the safest for the US military.
Against kamikazes, smashing is more important than hitting
Here in advance to say, the previous introduction of the 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun when talking about the installation of VT fuze, here officially apologize, after checking the VT fuze is only installed on the 3-inch anti-aircraft gun and 127 mm high-level gun, I am really sorry.
Back to the point, after 1944, Japanese suicide aircraft became more and more rampant and Japan changed almost all the aircraft that could be used to suicide aircraft, the 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun equipped by the US military could not effectively deal with the kamikaze special attack aircraft (hit but could not be broken), although the 127 mm high-altitude gun could fire an anti-aircraft gun with a VT fuze to crush the Japanese aircraft, but the size was too large and the ship could not be loaded too much, after considering repeatedly, the US military aimed at the 3-inch caliber anti-aircraft gun, and improved it with the MK27 type double-mounted 3-inch anti-aircraft gun This is the background of the development of the MK33 anti-aircraft gun.
VT fuzes
MK33 twin anti-aircraft guns, caliber 3 inches (76.2 mm), total weight 14700 kg, barrel length 150 inches (3810 mm), 50 times the diameter of the double; vertical firing boundary -15 ° ~ +85 °, horizontal firing boundary 360 °; The muzzle velocity is 823 meters per second, the maximum range is 13350 meters, the maximum height is 9266 meters, and the rate of fire is 45-50 rounds per minute.
MK33 twin anti-aircraft gun
MK33 type twin anti-aircraft gun rate of fire derived from its feed mechanism, the feed mechanism instead of the loader to the gun chamber to plug the shell action, the loader only need to put the shell on the feed rack, the feed wheel will continue to rotate the shell to the loading plate, the loading plate at any time and the gun bore mouth to maintain a straight line, when the shell exits the receding rod will be stuffed into the new shell, in the case of automatic loading the barrel life will be less than half of the manual loading.
Ammunition supply mechanism for the MK33 twin-mounted anti-aircraft gun
The hit rate of the MK33 twin anti-aircraft gun is not only VT fuze but also 4 Mk56 gun commanders, the command system is composed of an Mk34 small detection radar and a gyroscope and a ballistic solver, because the command system has a large pre-stored emission table capacity, so the solution ability is very good, can deal with multiple targets; In actual combat, the hit rate of VT fuzes is higher than that of the 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun nearly 40%.
Mk56 gun commander
The MK33 twin anti-aircraft gun had excellent trajectory, rate of fire and accuracy, but it was developed in 1945 and ultimately failed to catch up with World War II, and the prototype of the gun was only tested in September 1945, and part of the subsequent development resources of the gun were diverted to the 3-inch 70-caliber anti-aircraft gun at the end of World War II, which was not equipped until 1948.
The MK33 twin anti-aircraft gun has a ferocious rate of fire, which would have been a suicide aircraft nightmare if placed in World War II
The fate of the MK33 anti-aircraft gun is very similar to that of the Des Moines-class cruisers, the MK33 anti-aircraft gun was originally born to deal with kamikaze special attack aircraft, but by 1948 the sky was already full of suicide aircraft; The Des Moines-class cruiser's shipbuilding plan came from the Battle of Savo Island in 1942, when the target was the Japanese Kaohsiung class heavy cruiser, which appeared in 1946 after the end of World War II, and three of the four high-class heavy cruisers of the standard were sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and the only remaining heavy cruiser Kaohsiung was hit by a torpedo in the Palawan waterway and lost its combat capability.
Des Moines-class heavy cruiser